I've seen people mention how great Priceline is for London. But is there any way to 'study' this? Bidding for travel doesn't seem to include anything. Am I missing something, or any guidelines anyone can give?

Have a look at http://www.betterbidding.com

Scroll down to 'Other Countries' and you'll find the London hotels. You can see what hotels in what star category are available in what areas to help you start researching and deciding where and how to bid.

You can see what bids and what hotels are being won by others. You can also ask questions or for help on bidding strategies.

Betterbidding.com also covers http://Hotwire.com. I like Hotwire as you can very often ferret out exactly which hotel you'll be getting if you accept their price. It is usually more expensive than a NYOP on Priceline but I'm willing to pay more for a (almost) sure thing!

Rob

what help are you looking for? BFT shows a hotel list and recent bids (up to 2/4)



http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/for...nd-London.html

I like to know EXACTLY what and where I am booking and am willing to pay a bit more for that assurance!

If looking for hotel steals it may pay to hit the sites of two chain hotels - Travelodge.co.uk and PremierInns.co.uk - sometimes you can get modern and nice London hotels for 19-29 pounds if you act far enough in advance and are lucky.

Premier Inn - Book Cheap Hotels in the UK and Worldwide from 29 pounds
Premier Inn is the UK and Ireland's biggest and fastest growing hotel company. ... London hotels · Manchester hotels · Newcastle hotels · Norwich hotels ...
www.premierinn.com/ - United Kingdom -

Travelodge
Travelodge - great value accommodation at over 300 hotels throughout the UK and Ireland. Family rooms from £19 per room in England, Wales, Scotland and ...
www.travelodge.co.uk/

Hi,

I have used Priceline twice for hotels in London. I live in San Diego, so obviously not a local to the UK. I have been using Priceline for about 10 years. There are a few tricks, and it does take a bit of research, time and effort. However, the savings can be outstanding!

As Rob mentioned above...I access an informative bidding website for hotel lists and recent successful bids. I use biddingfortravel.com.

Step 1:
I check out hotel prices on various areas of the city I am traveling to, and make note. Including sites as reference(Travelcity, Hotwire. Londontown etc)
Step 2:
I review successful bids on biddingfortravel.com and make note. I nearly always stay in 4* or better, thus I only review the info related to my star level interest.
Step 3:
I check out all the hotels listed by biddingfortravel in the star level on which I plan to bid. I read as many reviews as I can, until I kind of get the overall rating of the guests experiences. Especially important, I note the comments about the location of the hotel.
Step 4:
I print off a hotel list from biddingfortravel and then I print off an area map of the city and the list of star level hotels in each geographic area.

(For example: Priceline divides London into several areas, some are not very convenient to downtown, such as "the docklands" area.)
Step 5:
I then decide which area in which I would like to stay.
(Say perhaps in London I choose the "Marble Arch" area, which has 4 star hotels.)
Step 6:
Review the most recent bid wins in the area and base my bid on that price.
<Last summer during the first week of July, we "won" the Hilton Metropole for $98 US dollars a night, including the priceline fee and tax, (make sure you factor that cost into the bid price). We also, went on to stay in Paris for $120 per night, Munich for $99 and Cologne, Germany for $70. Using this method uusually cuts are accomodation budget by 50% or more.(Or we stay at 4 or 5 star hotels for 2 star prices).>
Step 7:
Cross your fingers and hope for the best. It does feel a little like betting everything on red in Roulette, but the risk is part of playing the budget game.

IMPORTANT:
*The hotels are usually large chains and will have less local flavor than small hotels.
*The locations are sometimes an extra stop or two from the most popular areas of a city. (ie: The Marble Arch area is a mostly middle eastern population and the local cuisine reflected the culture.However, the underground was just 2 blocks from the hotel. We simply rode the tube to Boroughs Market or Picadilly Circus if we wanted "typical London
food".)
*Nice thing, you often stay in rooms with "American" sized beds and ammenties.( We had KING non-smoking rooms in London, Paris, Cologne and Munich).
*Amazingly, we have never had a problem with rooms anywhere, and if we did the hotel always have remedied the situation. Of course, the more you SMILE and are COURTEOUS the better service you will receive.

Honestly, I always use Priceline, unless I am traveling to an area that Priceline doesn't serve or I am looking for a different hotel experience. (Such as a B&B in Brugge or Zimmer frei on the Rhine.)
I realize that sounds complicated ,but I hope it helps!

Happy bidding,

Tina

All the information you need is on Bidding For Travel. Basically, you narrow down the zones, based upon the location and the hotels on offer. Then, look at the winning bids posted for those zones, which gives you a rough idea how much to bid. As long as you aren't concerned with your exact hotel, it is pretty simple. I have never paid more than $100 per night.

I really feel stupid. I went to bidding for travel and all I saw was US hotels. I tried looking for something else to click for other countries and couldn't find a thing. Who knew all I had to do was keep scrolling down to the end of the US list and there they were? LOL


Thanks for the advice and the other tips as well. I'll be in London 6 nights in October, and I think for the first time in my last 12 trips or so there, I am NOT planning on renting my usual flat. I'd like to save some money this time, but I'm really picky about staying close to the theatres and the only zone for Priceline is even a little tricky on that one.

Hi, NP .

Just a hint, if you initially don't have luck w/ PL for your stay, it might be because you will be bidding for 6 nights. Sometimes an extended stay like that can be difficult. A hotel might have 3 or 4 nights available but be booked up the other nights.

If you keep getting rejected, before raising your bid too much try breaking the bid into 3 nights stays. It might mean moving hotels midway through - but for $90 a night that isn't too much of a hardship. (6 nights might work fine -- just keep that strategy in mind in case)

You could also try:

www.lastminute.com
www.laterooms.com

for hotels in the UK and Europe.

I'm with Avalon on this. What always puzzles me about the whole Priceline bidding thing is that the only input you have to the hotel selection before you part with your money is the star rating and the general location. But at least in the UK (maybe other countries as well in my experience), the star rating is more about the facilities offered by the hotel (e.g. 24h reception, business centre, room service etc etc) than the quality of the rooms and service.

For that reason, I've never been tempted to use PL, preferring to choose the hotel of my choice, based on my own research.

Gordon_R,

What you are missing is that by using sites such as biddingfortravel.com and betterbidding.com you already know in advance which of several hotels you are likely to get!

By doing some research in advance, if any of those possibilities seems bad, you either don't bid or you bid on a different area.

What I'm trying to say is with a bit of detective work you can pretty well be assured of getting what you want. If you bid on a 5 star hotel in Mayfair you won't end up in a 2 star dump on the Isle of Dogs!
;^)

I have never yet had a bad Priceline or Hotwire experience in several trips. If you like paying higher prices, fine. But like Tina, I rather like 4 and 5 star hotels at 2 star prices! ;^)

Rob

Well in reviewing, I feel that the only way I MIGHT bid Priceline for London would be for a three star in Mayfair/Soho. That is the only area I'd want to be in, as other areas extend much further than I'd want to be. In fact, loving to be within a few blocks of the theatres as I've always been, I'd even be unhappy with some of the four and five star wins in that area -- way too far from where I'd want to be.

Bidding for travel only shows one 3 star -- the Thistle Piccadilly. It's nothing special but at least I'd be happy with the location. Sadly I can't find a single post about anyone winning that as no one seems to have ever posted about 3 star bids. So I'm not even sure how confident I'd be not knowing if I'd get something else too far walking distance (six times a day) from the theatres. Normally I'll go to TKTS in the morning, see a matinee in the afternoon, and an evening performance. I like to be able to pop in and out of my own place between each of those. Meanwhile $200 seems to be an average win for a four or five star in that area. While that may be a huge savings from what those hotels would charge, it's not enough savings for me to skip renting my usual flat, which I'd still prefer instead, and know that my location would be better than taking my chances. I was hoping to pay around $100 -- and perhaps I could get the Thistle Piccadilly for that, but who knows?
Priceline just may not work for me.

And Palenque, while those two chains may be great deals, they seem to have NOTHING I'd be interested in. Saving money to be not where I want to be just isn't appealing to me. Yea, OK, so I'm really picky about location.

The Travel Lodge near Covent Garden is superbly located and gets good reviews here - one Brit Fodorite even reported she did get 19 pound rooms there. But i do not know where you want to be

My mistake, I missed that one -- although I know that neighborhood pretty well and for the life of me I can't picture that rather large and imposing hotel (if the picture is right) on the corner of Drury Lane and Short's Court.
You're right. If I could get that at 19 pounds I would be VERY happy there. It currently shows it at 95 pounds though -- too early for those super prices. I will keep that in mind,however.

Hello Patrick - it is I who has stayed at the Drury Lane Travelodge for as little as 29 GBP. You can stay at that price every night except Friday and Saturday when the price does go up to 59/79 GBP, which frankly is only to be expected as those nights are when there is most demand for rooms.

The thing with Travelodge is to book early - they only have a certain number of rooms at each price level, and when those are gone, the price increases.

The location on Drury Lane is really good. In fact it is almost opposite the theatre where War Horse in being shown at the moment. There are two Travelodge buildings, one on Drury Lane and the other is over the road. My DD has stayed at that one and says it is fine. Basic, comfortable, but fine.

Good bus and tube stops nearby, easy walking distance to Covent Garden, Leicester Square, the Travelodge offers breakfast but on Drury Lane there are little cafes where you can get the same for pounds less.

BTW, Thistle Hotels are OK, some are wonderful (Lancaster Gate Thistle for example - used to be the old White's Hotel) others are quite grim. The Royal Horseguards Thistle is also very nice.

Premier Travel Inn County Hall is right by the London Eye and is good value - it's at the the back of the building with the Marriott County Hall at the front overlooking the Thames. But a great location nonetheless.

But knowing that you love your theatre, if you are prepared for a basic but perfectly adequate room (beds are very comfortable and linens are clean and fairly soft!) then you couldn't do worse than the Drury Lane Travelodge at Covent Garden.

And yes, you can do better - a lot better - but you'd pay a lot more.

I've just had a look at the Travelodge website - and October is currently coming up at a fairly high price.

I randomly entered a date of 19/10/2010, then took it back a month each time, and when you get to August the rooms are there for 29 GBP - for some nights only, mainly Sunday and Monday. Other nights vary between 32 - 99 GBP. August is higher season than October...

So it would seem that booking 6 months out might get you the best prices. Even then if the price wasn't right you've still loads of time to look at Priceline.

And there's always lastminute.com - for 80 GBP I've got the 4* Selfridge Hotel just off Oxford Street, including a huge full English breakfast.

Thanks. Yes. That's what I've suspected. Their website shows the 19 pound special is currently only good through May, and although I couldn't find anything less than about 95 a night in October, I'm assuming that specials will exist again long before my arrival.

My problem is I truly love the big flat I've rented on Floral Street in Covent Garden many times. But I'm trying not to spend anything near the nearly $200 a night it currenty runs(by the week). Unless I cut my costs at least in half from that for the full stay, there is really no point in my doing something else for some fairly meager savings.

NeoPatrick,

Although I am a huge fan of Priceline...I think you should follow your gut instinct and stay at your usual place or somewhere near the theatre. The savings are only worthwhile if the hotel meets your needs.I think your location needs may be just a bit too specific for this style of hotel booking. Have fun in London!

Tina